Rome & relativism
Imbelli, Robert P.
few clues as to how to reason about the truth. Its claims have to do with authority. Among some Catholic theologians, Anyone who cares...
...It is simply has been frequent appeal to the "hierarchy of truths...
...But if the doctrine of the unique ular upon the New Testament, the documents of Vatican II, Commonweal 13 October 20, 2000 It certainly acknowledges the right of men and women to be free from coercion in fulfilling their duty to worship God...
...Yet she proclaims, and is duty bound to pro- phatically clear: God is best encountered in the Catholic claim without fail, Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life church founded by Jesus Christ...
...mandated by its Christocentric vision...
...It would be of the hierarchy of truths, then there is no such thing...
...Its claims have to do with authority...
...A re- that this article of faith, everywhere professed and presumed markable, indeed, revolutionary document, it by Vatican II, can no longer be taken for granted...
...To countercheck the tium, which confesses that Christ is "the light of all peoples" view that pluralism is tolerable or inevitable, the CDF puband that all are called to union with Christ...
...congregations, as well as to the Catholic faithful...
...It intends to recapitulate the church's faith in the uniqueness and uniRobert P. Imbelli versal salvific significance of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God: the article of faith upon which the church itself stands n November 18,1965, Dei verbum was promul- or falls...
...Roman imagination...
...It is a recognition that God's grace is operative outside the visible rhetorically somber though theologically questionable docboundaries of the Catholic church in no way lessens the mis- ument...
...Dominus Iesus could not have significance that the first citation is taken from the creed of said it better...
...What is crucially important about this document is gated by the Second Vatican Council...
...You can set- or that Jesus is Savior tle for cheap universalisms...
...It instructs that God saves in only one way, Commonweal 14 October 20, 2000...
...Jn 14:6...
...Back to the drawing board...
...Among some Catholic the "traditionalist" preliminary draft of the constitution theologians, there is advanced the idea of "multiple incarnathree years before had marked the effective beginning of tions" of the Christ, or that Jesus is Savior only for Christians, Pope John's council and the beginning of the end of Tri- or that the salvific role of the Spirit is more universal than dentine Catholicism, with its undeniable beauties and ba- that of Jesus Christ, or that Trinity is but one "model" for nalities...
...Fair enough...
...Though the Since we in sister and brother churches do seek guidance, tone of the document is peremptory and its ecclesiological from Rome and elsewhere, and who hope also to be heard, teaching raises legitimate questions, I shall limit myself to Dominus Iesus inspires regret, not rage, for the missed op- the Christological teaching because the profession of faith portunity it represents...
...11 in Jesus Christ constitutes the heart of the matter...
...gregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF...
...ifest in Christ...
...one time or other the claim is put forward that birth con- The CDF document does not mount a theological argutrol or even papal infallibility does not "rank high" in that hi- ment but sets forth a profession of faith, drawing in particerarchy...
...It appears in print, both at popular and Yet, the robust Christocentrism of Dei verbum-indeed, more sophisticated theological levels...
...he must always be the measure and the papal magisterium of John Paul II...
...Yet Dominus Iesus spends its only for Christians, time saying that Catholics cannot look for new formulations or that the salvific role of the Spirit in a world wherein they cannot hide and where they do not is more universal do well simply to build walls...
...It insists that the fullness of divine revelation is manquoted by the declaration) affirms this same tensive both/and...
...In that light, it is important to note that the declaration is directed not Martin E. Marty, the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Pro- to ecumenical dialogue partners, nor to all people of good fessor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, has written extensive- will, but to the bishops of the Catholic church, to be comly on ecumenism and interfaith relations...
...but in the precise sense of what ultimately binds believers and constitutes their identity as Philip Kennedy Catholic Christians...
...0 secured the church's acceptance of modern his- Put bluntly: There is abroad a measure of innocent and torical-critical methods of biblical exegesis...
...Hence the council's lished a declaration Dominus Iesus ("The Lord Jesus...
...It rejects the (2 Cor 5:18-19), men and women find the fullness of religious view that the ultimate mystery of God has been revealed to life...
...Such "unimore vibrant, personalist understanding of God's revela- tarianism of the Spirit" is no figment of some overheated tion, whose fullness is given in the person of Jesus Christ...
...The authors mystery of God...
...Clearly, Christological normativity, the uniqueness and A salvific universality of Jesus Christ, was not invented by the current CDF...
...of Dominus Iesus have this correct: Without clear, reflective, and empathic guidance, believers will be at sea, awash in tides of relativism...
...D the Council of Constantinople in its original articulation (without the later Western addition of the ' filioque"): the The Reverend Robert P. Imbelli, a priest of the Archdiocese of common Trinitarian faith of the undivided church...
...rite because it fails to represent fully the profoundest teachSimilarly, the council's epoch-making Nostra aetate explicitly ing of Vatican II concerning divine salvation and the reliprofesses both respect and evangelical responsibility-both gions of the world...
...It only reiterates the very first words of Lumen gen- gregation for the Doctrine of the Faith...
...bitrary or unenlightened...
...than that of Jesus Christ, Our shrunken world does not permit Rome or Geneva, or that Trinity is but one "model" Athens or Canterbury, Wittenberg or New York, to be sequestered, closed off, from other believers and nonbelievers...
...for speaking of the incomprehensible How present is Jesus Christ in such a world...
...Thus the New York and a frequent Commonweal contributor, teaches Catholic declaration is "dogmatic," not in the invidious sense of ar- theology at Boston College...
...human beings in a variety of historical figures apart from Moreover, the equally celebrated Dignitatis humanae (also Christ...
...It also stands alongside a host of other world relibe taken for granted...
...You can lose the impulse to invite others into the company of Christ...
...Among some Catholic theologians, Anyone who cares about spreading the truth in Christ, there is advanced the idea a.k.a...
...Dominus lesus' ample citations from Vat- alive today who agrees with every belief of all ican II do not represent an exercise in proof-texting, but an other Christians...
...Ours is an age of far-reaching devotional multifortence on the universal significance of the salvation offered mity...
...In the thirty-five years since Vatican II, there there is no legitimate role for the magisterium...
...At the same time, Dignitatis humanae "professes its belief that God himself has made known to the human race the way in which men and women are to serve him, and thus be saved in Christ and come to blessedness...
...The declaration's much criticized insis- gions...
...In him, in whom God reconciled all things to himself This new declaration is a relatively brief text...
...If the church's magisof all the council's documents-now seems to evoke em- terium cannot authoritatively declare that such is not "the barrassment in certain "progressive" theological and mis- faith delivered once and for all to the saints" (Jude 3), then sionary circles...
...Also significant is that Dei verbum is often quoted and every- Here is a sobering thought...
...It is of utmost and not what is measured...
...It is not an irrevocable text for Catholics of the Roman sionary imperative to "preach the gospel to every creature...
...unfair to call the new Vatican document simply exclusivist It seems to me that a concern for securing that definitive arand fundamentalist, but in its polemical swing at Catholics tide of faith forms the context in which to understand Domiwho, Rome thinks, are indeed giving the store away, it has nus Iesus, the recent controversial declaration from the Connot contributed to clarity...
...It is simply the doctrine of the faith...
...At otiose...
...But such theological exploration must be faithful to the dogmatic content of revelation, if it is truly to be theology: faith seeking understanding...
...There is no Christian where presupposed...
...In the statement, "Called to Be Catholic," that launched Cardinal Joseph Bernardin's Common Ground Initiative, we read: "Jesus Christ, present in Scripture and sacrament, is central to all that we do...
...Dominus el Iesus' reaffirmation of this faith does not preclude further theological investigation...
...Dei verbum was justly celebrated for recovering a speaking of the incomprehensible mystery of God...
...Contemporary Christianity is exercise of spiritual discernment, re-echoing the Christo-logic marked by a ubiquitous plurality of tenets and of the council in a new context in which it can no longer, alas, customs...
...His newest book is municated especially to theological faculties and missionary Education, Religion, and the Common Good (Jossey-Bass...
...The rejection of sometimes quite intentional apostasy...
...Manifest religious variety within Christianity and through Christ is not a retreat from ecumenical dialogue or among religions is currently troubling the Vatican's Contolerance...
...Gaudium et spes, which many believe to be the most distinctively original of the council's documents, also proclaims, as it must, this Christological vision and faith...
...Indeed, the declaration several times encourages precisely such reflection (see numbers 14 and 21...
...evangelism, and about dialogue among the religions, of "multiple incarnations" has to know that you can "give the store away" in dealings of the Christ, with other faiths on an open market...
...It states (in a passage At base, Dominus lesus struggles with the most taxing of all several times referred to by the recent declaration): "The theological questions: How and where might human beings Catholic church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in chance upon a saving God in their world...
...Its answer is emthese religions...
...Or, conversely, they will react as funda- Incarnation of Jesus Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity mentalists do, building walls, creating barriers, and speak- that flows from that confession of faith do not form the apex ing ill of all who do not belong to their club...
Vol. 127 • October 2000 • No. 18
